This is from Mel Hertig's book Pay the Rent or Feed the Kids, page 128.
In 1988, the year before the Free Trade Agreement came into effect, the
ratio of those employed as a percentage of the population fifteen years
and over stood at 62 per cent. During the first ten years of the FTA
the employment rate averaged only 59.5 per cent. Once again, the 2.5
per cent difference may seem small, but it translates into a difference
of some 350,000 jobs per year.
In the decade before the FTA, employment in Canada increased by
2,498,600 jobs. During the first decade of the FTA, employment in Canada
increased by only 1,507,500 jobs, a huge difference of almost one
million jobs.
In the decade before the FTA, full-time employment in Canada
increased by 1,719,200 jobs. During the first decade of the FTA,
full-time employment increased by a dismal 975,000 jobs.
During the decade before the FTA, part-time employment averaged 16 per
cent of all jobs. In the first decade of the FTA, part-time employment
aveaged 18.3 per cent of all jobs.
In the decade before the FTA, the number of payroll employees in
Canada increased by 2,037,900. During the first FTA decade, the number
of payroll employees increased by a paltry 803,200.
Even these awful statistics are overly generous ...more than half of
all jobs created in Canada during the 1990's have been in the category
of the "self-employed". .. Self-employed workers in canda on average
earn between 50 and 65 percent of the earnings of paid workers usually
work longer and have poor benefits. About half of the self-employed
earn less than $20,000 per year and about one-quarter earn less than
$10,000.
Only about 10 per cen of those classified as self-employed hire
employees. This also is a big change from the previous decade, when
about two-thirds of those newly self-employed hired others.
.. As indicated previoiusly, during the first decade of the FTA only
1,507,500 jobs were created. But of those, 704,300 were "self-employed
jobs" , while 581,100 constituted part-time jobs. That leaves a
pathetic remaining average of only 22,210 new jobs a year.
Through much of 1999, Canadians were bombarded with laudatory
comments in the media about how successful the FTA had been for Canada.
The comments came mostly from the same big business sources that helped
buy the 1988 free trade election...Surely they said, it was self-evident
the FTA has been such a great success because there has been a huge
increase in exports to the U.S. and now about 40 per cent of our GDP
(and by inference our jobs and our standard of living ) depends on that
trade. ..But the impact on Canadians has been devastating.
